Ask Doug
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday July 27, 2009
Jack Vaughn saw recent correspondence regarding Sometimes a Great Notion, based on the Ken Kesey novel, and sent in a DVD copy of the eccentric 1970 comedy starring Paul Newman and Henry Fonda, plus a disc of Where the Buffalo Roam, which has yet to be claimed by its unknown seeker. A small surrey without a fringe but drawn by a team of miniature gazelles and lashed into a flared-nostril frenzy by a sadistic stoat with a whip has conveyed the Kesey disc to George Barnes of Mayfield East in record time.A package, post-marked April 28, has arrived from Mr L. Burner's mist-shrouded residence not far from Newcastle. Inside are two discs: Colonel Redl and Whiskey Galore the latter sought some moons ago by Dianne Pope of Stockton (whose earlier requests were also filled by Lucky) and the former by Norm Williams. Norm could you make contact? I can't find your address. Numerous Long Hot Summers have been processed, as I recall, and the globe-trotting Lucky, impatient for warmer weather, has departed for a tour of Slavic and French-speaking countries. Formidable! Meantime, thanks to Deb Dewar of Lake Cathie for sending in a further copy of Long Hot Summer, which has been sought frequently, and to John Green of Callala Bay for a copy of Colonel Redl. Ditto David Donne of Evans Head, who noted a recent call and answer regarding Shooting the Past and wonders if anyone can oblige him with the same and/or a doco entitled African Truck Journey, narrated by Tom Crothcher circa 1995.Tidy is as tidy does and a handwritten note is always preferred to a Twitter or any of the other gangrenous, impersonal forms of communication. Certainly when it comes from someone as nice as Natalie Callard of Randwick, who has sent in a swag of soundtrack CDs and various DVDs and VHS tapes as she gets in early with her spring cleaning this year. Some of her discards went to local libraries that's the spirit! and the residue to this column. The items are: five Michael Nyman CDs (I'll keep one perhaps), three Indiana Jones films, Bagdad Cafe, Cactus Flower, Duran Duran's Sing Blue Silver, the Smiths' The Complete Picture, Casablanca, Indiscreet and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover.Carolyn Wright of Raby sent in a disc of The March for Marek Bogatek and Breaking Away, which turned out to be surplus to requirements. But in the hurly-burly of incompetence and ineptitude that seems to surround this column, no mention was made of her own request for The Duchess of Malfi, which, she says, starred Ben Kingsley. Oddly, I can find no reference to Sir Ben being in any production of that play in filmed form. The last cinematic release was, so far as I can tell, in 1972 and it most certainly did not feature Kingsley as Daniel de Bosola.GPO Box 506, Sydney, 2001 or fax 9282 2481
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